Give Color to Your Home Staging Business with These Marketing Tips

It happens every time you work your home staging magic: Artsy furniture arrangements and landscaping projects transform a dreary dwelling into a desirable home that anybody would dream to live in.

You know the value of your work. Your satisfied clients understand it too. Now, the goal is to make sure prospective customers understand just how much value you bring to every project.

Let the numbers do the talking with these statistics demonstrating the impact home staging has on home sales. Then, dig into some marketing tips that’ll boost your business in no time.

Share the Statistics

People respond to numbers to help them make informed decisions, invest in services and determine the worth of a product. Consider sharing these compelling stats from the National Association of Realtors’ 2015 Profile of Home Staging and the Real Estate Staging Association. They can be used on your website, in direct emails, print ads and other marketing materials to beef up the value of services you can offer. Add a great photo and each makes a great Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest post.

49% of surveyed realtors believe staging usually has an effect on the buyer’s view of the home

Over 81% of buyers find it “easier to visualize the property as their future home when it’s staged”

32% of buyers’ agents believe staged homes increase the dollar value buyers are willing to offer by 1% to 5%

In 2013, a 63-home study in the US found that unstaged homes stayed on the market for 143 days on average; when these same homes were staged, they received their first offer within 40 days

Almost a third (28%) of buyers are willing to “overlook property faults” when the home is staged

Though we all love word-of-mouth referrals, it’s a passive approach to earning great projects. Smart marketing is more proactive and will spread your message far and wide to help boost your business.

Home Staging Marketing Tips

1. Have a Social Media Presence

It doesn’t take much to be on social media, but it takes a concerted effort to establish a vibrant presence. Choose only as many platforms as you can manage and post a few times a week—unattended social media accounts make prospective clients wonder if you’re still in business. Posts should be short, positive and always include a photo (remember, images heighten engagement!). You’re the expert, so show off your work and offer advice on simple ways to improve living spaces. Popular platforms for home stagers include:

Facebook: Join community groups, which are breeding grounds for word-of-mouth referrals and share albums of past projects.

Pinterest: A great image and information sharing platform. Here you can show off the spaces you’ve designed, as well as inspirations from around the web to inspire your followers.

Instagram: Though this one mostly caters to the younger set, the visual medium is perfect to share photos of your work.

2. Talk in Your Community

Many homeowners love to learn about ways they can improve their living spaces. Look for opportunities to give a talk that showcases your skills. The local home improvement store, library, and Business Improvement Association are good places to start. For a consumer audience, share secrets about furniture placement, quick landscaping fixes and DIY tricks. They may not need your services as a home stager today, tomorrow or even next year, but the advice and marketing material you give them will keep you top-of-mind in the future.

If your audience is a group of real estate agents, you can take the same approach with slightly different content (like presenting the stats above). Lock them in by sharing information to help them do their jobs better—guaranteed, you’ll win their attention.

3. Ask for Reviews

From Yelp to TripAdvisor to Houzz, people love to read reviews from real people before they commit to a company or service. Create some buzz about your business by asking each of your clients to write a testimonial after every job. It can be delicate to ask (and re-ask if they don’t get to it in a timely way), so consider emailing five questions designed to elicit both specific and positive responses. It’ll be hard to turn down the request if you offer a sweet treat as a reward.

4. Write a Blog that Inspires

You don’t have to be a great writer to put together a fun, engaging blog post. If the act of writing is torturous, consider hiring a freelancer, or having an editor glance at your work. A blog is a great place to demonstrate your skills, personality, professionalism and the way you approach your work. Even if you only consistently post each week or two, publish content that homeowners can use, including things like:

Short how-to videos (consider a walk-through of a home describing how you’d stage it)

Expert tips and advice

For more ideas on how to market in your community, consider joining a home stagers’ association or network. If there are none in your area, hop onto LinkedIn and join related groups where you can discuss marketing and other tricks of the trade with professionals from all over the world.

about the author

Freelance Contributor
Heather Hudson is an accomplished freelance writer and journalist based in Toronto. She writes for a number of publishing, corporate and agency clients who depend on her to deliver high-quality, on-brand content and journalism with a fresh perspective. Learn more about her work at heatherhudson.ca.